A KSA university campus needs to connect 12 buildings across 2km. The two options are fiber (trench it) or PTP wireless (mount radios on rooftops). Both work. The total cost of ownership differs significantly.
Here’s how to calculate which wins.
Fiber TCO calculation
For a 2km fiber run in KSA urban context:
- Permits and approvals: SAR 50K-150K
- Civil works (trenching): SAR 200K-500K depending on terrain and surface
- Fiber cable + accessories: SAR 50K-100K
- Installation labor: SAR 50K-100K
- Termination and testing: SAR 20K-40K
- Total capex: SAR 370K-890K
Operational costs:
- Annual maintenance: SAR 10K-30K
- Repair-on-damage (rare but expensive): SAR 50K-200K when needed
10-year TCO: SAR 470K-1.2M (assuming one major repair event)
PTP wireless TCO calculation
For a 2km PTP wireless link in KSA:
- Site survey: SAR 10K-25K
- Radio gear (premium 1-10 Gbps): SAR 50K-150K
- Antennas, cables, mounting: SAR 20K-50K
- Installation labor: SAR 25K-50K
- Tower/mounting structure (if needed): SAR 30K-200K
- Power and UPS at endpoints: SAR 15K-40K
- Total capex: SAR 150K-515K
Operational costs:
- Annual maintenance and software: SAR 8K-20K
- Equipment refresh at year 7-10: SAR 30K-100K
10-year TCO: SAR 250K-720K
When wireless clearly wins
- Distances over 1km in urban contexts where civil works are restricted
- Cross-road, cross-water, cross-rail scenarios where civil works are extremely expensive
- Time-critical deployments (under 4 weeks)
- Temporary connectivity (construction sites, events, disaster recovery)
When fiber clearly wins
- Very short distances (under 200m) where fiber is cheap to install
- Mission-critical connectivity where wireless weather-tolerance is unacceptable
- High-bandwidth requirements sustained at 10+ Gbps (PTP can deliver this but fiber is more cost-effective at high sustained capacity)
KSA-specific considerations
Climate — heavy rain (rare in KSA but happens) affects mmWave (60+ GHz). 5 GHz mostly unaffected.
Dust — affects all wireless slightly; well-engineered links are designed for it.
Civil works regulations — KSA municipalities vary in permit complexity. Wireless avoids this entirely.
CITC licensing — for licensed bands (24/80 GHz). Adds 4-8 weeks to deployment but enables much higher capacity than unlicensed bands.
EIE’s typical recommendation
For 70% of KSA distance-extension scenarios, PTP wireless is the right answer. Fiber wins for very short or very high-bandwidth or absolutely-mission-critical scenarios. Both can be combined in hybrid deployments where the wireless serves as backup or burst capacity.